Guided Active Rest: Mind & Body Release & Grounding

This practice is based on the Alexander Technique daily practice of Active Rest (also known as Constructive Rest or semi-supine). Its aim is to direct attention to tension held in the body, and consciously choose to release unnecessary tension. This brings greater ease in body and mind, as well as renewed energy.

It's great for releasing worry and muscle tension or fatigue.

This practice is most effective when done lying down.

Kathy is an Alexander Technique teacher, since 2006.

Transcript

Hello,

I'm Kathy Hick and I'm leading you in the practice of Active Rest.

This is a daily practice of the Alexander Technique.

You may also know it as Constructive Rest or Semi-Supine.

It's similar to a body scan,

But less formulaic and with potentially deeper effect.

The aim is to release tension and holding throughout your body,

Resulting in greater physical,

Mental and emotional ease.

This practice is best experienced lying down.

You can sit if lying down is uncomfortable or inconvenient at the time.

If lying down,

I suggest lying on a yoga or Pilates mat on the floor.

A Pilates mat is thicker if you want more cushioning.

Place a couple of paperback books or a cushion under your head.

This head support allows your head,

Neck and the rest of your spine to stay in alignment,

Allowing ease through your whole back.

Lie in Semi-Supine with your feet flat on the floor,

Legs bent with knees pointing up toward the ceiling.

This position provides good back support.

Let your arms fall onto the floor at your sides,

Then bend your arms at the elbows,

Bringing your hands to rest on your midriff or stomach.

This arm position puts less strain on the neck and shoulders.

Let your gaze be soft up toward the ceiling.

If sitting on a chair,

Let your feet rest flat on the floor.

Feel your sit bones resting on the seat of the chair,

And let your spine lengthen up from the sit bones.

You're not stretching or pulling up,

Just allowing an easy upward direction through the length of the spine.

Let your head float lightly on top of the spine,

On top of the neck.

Let your hands rest,

Palms up on top of your thighs.

Let your elbows drop,

Let your shoulders drop,

Letting your arms be heavy and allowing openness and ease across your collarbones and the top of your chest.

Let your gaze be soft and straight ahead.

I will give directions for the Semi-Supine posture.

You can transpose them to the sitting posture if you're sitting.

So lie down in Semi-Supine and get yourself comfortable,

And then we'll begin.

Take three deep,

Full breaths,

Filling your belly on the in-breath and letting it empty on the out-breath.

In and out.

Breathing in and out.

And third time,

Breathing in and breathing out.

Gaze lightly at the ceiling and begin to let your jaw soften.

Lightly bite your teeth together,

And then let your jaw drop until your lips are only just meeting.

Feel the space inside your mouth,

The softness in your jaw and your throat.

Let your eyes soften.

Let your gaze be soft and peripheral.

Notice any tension in your neck,

In the front of your neck,

The sides of your neck,

The back of your neck.

And just see what you can let soften and melt away.

Feeling the back of your head as it's resting on the books.

Noticing that contact there and seeing what you can let release in the muscles of your head,

Your face.

Letting the back of your head soften onto the books more.

And again,

Remembering your gaze lightly,

Open towards the ceiling,

Letting the muscles around your eyes soften,

Muscles in your cheeks,

Letting your jaw soften.

And then notice the contact that your shoulder blades are making with the floor.

Notice that bony contact and see what you can release there,

Letting your shoulders and your upper back fall more onto the floor.

Notice your upper arms as they're dropping from your shoulders,

Down towards the elbows where they meet the floor.

See if you can do less in your upper arms.

Soften into that bony contact your elbows are making with the floor.

And then bring your attention to your forearms and your wrists and your hands.

What can you let soften there?

Noticing your thumbs in particular,

We tend to hold a lot of tension in our thumbs.

See if you can let them soften.

Feeling that contact that your palms are making with your body.

Feel that softness,

That openness,

That spreading of your fingers and your palms as you let that whole hand and arm structure soften a bit more.

You can notice now the contact that your whole back is making with the floor.

You're seeing where there's tension holding,

Any tightness.

See what you can let go.

Think of your rib cage dropping out from your spine,

Allowing the middle of your back to rest more on the floor.

Noticing the contact that the back of your pelvis is making with the floor.

What can you release there?

What can you let soften and do less?

And for a moment,

Revisiting your neck,

Your head,

Feeling that firm contact of the back of your head on the books,

Noticing any tension that might have come back into your jaw,

Your face,

And just letting that soften,

Letting your jaw slacken a bit,

Allowing your throat to soften,

Allowing the back of your neck to drop towards the floor,

Feeling more contact with the floor in your upper back,

Your middle back,

Your lower back across the pelvic region,

Just letting all that soften and release.

Then you can start to notice what's going on in the hip joints.

Is there any tension,

Any holding in the hips?

Because you're obviously doing a bit of work,

Holding your legs upright in this semi-supine position.

So there'll be a bit of tension there,

But what we're always looking to do is minimize the effort,

The muscle tension,

To carry out the activity that we're doing.

So feeling the contact of your lower back against the floor,

See what you can release in your thighs.

So across your quads on the top of your thighs,

See what you can let soften there,

Feeling the weight of your thighs dropping back into the hip joints.

And what release you can allow there.

Noticing your hands still resting quietly on your stomach,

Your thumbs soft,

Your fingers soft,

Lots of space across your palms.

Notice your breathing in and out,

And how your hands will be slightly rising and falling with that rhythm of your breath.

Your arms dropping back onto the floor,

Weight of your arms dropping out from the shoulders.

Then bringing your attention to the soles of your feet,

Feeling the contact that your feet,

The soles of your feet make with the floor.

Noticing that you might have a tendency to want you to let your legs drop out,

Or you may have a tendency to want to pull your legs in to the center.

Notice how both of those positions bring a bit more tension into the muscles of the leg,

Legs and the back.

So what we're looking for is that sort of neutral position where again we're doing the minimum of work to hold our legs upright.

So a way you can check for that is as you're noticing the contact of the soles of your feet on the floor,

You'll feel a lot of contact coming down through your heels.

And then when you come up to the front of your foot with your toes,

You'll notice there's weight dropping through the big toe side,

And then weight dropping through the little toe side.

And so what you want to do is have the big toe side and the little toe side be balanced and fairly equal,

Because you notice if your legs roll out,

You'll have a lot more contact with the little toe side.

And if you're pulling your legs in,

You'll feel a lot more contact on the big toe side.

So you're just looking to have a nice triangle there,

A fairly equal contact between the big toe and little toe side,

And then that balancing contact through the heels.

So really feeling the soles of your feet plugged in there,

Giving a nice support to the weight of the legs.

Staying to the tops of your feet,

See if you can do less there.

Think of softness spreading across the top of your feet,

All those muscles and tendons and all those little bones in there.

Just let everything soften a bit.

We tend to cling on with our feet,

But we don't need to here.

We can just let go of that holding we didn't even know we were doing.

And then coming up to the front of the ankle and seeing what you can let go there.

Seeing the effect that brings to the front of your lower leg,

The shins,

And also down into the feet.

Doing less in the ankles lets that ease spread wider.

Also bringing your attention up the front of your lower legs,

Up the shin,

Seeing if you can do less there.

And that will entail checking in again with your toes,

The tops of your feet,

Letting yourself do less there.

Letting that ease continue up the shin.

And notice your calves.

Is there anything less you can do there?

Any tension you can let drop onto the floor?

Noticing the backs of your knees.

It's an odd place that we often hold tension that we don't know we have.

Think of softening of the backs of your knees,

Letting that tension just drop out.

And coming to the fronts of your knees.

What less can you do there?

What can you let soften and be easy?

Noticing the weight of your legs,

Especially your upper legs,

Dropping down into your hip joints.

And also thinking of your legs coming out of your hip joints,

Almost as if you're sending the knee away from the hip joints.

Feeling what ease and softness you can allow there.

If there's any less work,

You can allow to hold your legs in that semi-supine position.

And then bringing your attention once again back to your neck,

Thinking of letting your neck drop back towards the floor,

Your jaw softening.

Allowing your gaze to stay soft and peripheral towards the ceiling.

Take a deep breath.

Notice how you can feel the breath.

Feel as if it's moving up and down the entire length of your spine.

Feeling the back resting on the floor.

Feeling that contact.

Starting with the back of your head,

Down through your shoulder blades,

Your middle back and your chest,

Your hips,

Your pelvis,

Your sacrum.

And then finally the soles of your feet.

All that contact that you're making with the floor.

Letting the floor take your weight as you let the tension,

The holding,

Drop away.

And we'll just hear a short time in silence.

And then I'll give you instructions for getting up.

Once again,

This is The.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Reviews

Lovely thank you, it's amazing how much tension we can hold even when we think we are relaxed 🙏🌟

This was just amazingly relaxing . Thank
you very much 🙏

Just what I needed- thank you 🙏🏼 very relaxing 😌

Lovely! .Clear, calm simple instructions leading to a relaxed, loose post-Alexander lesson feeling.

So, so good …